CONTRIBUTION TO THE AVIFAUNA OF WEST ROSS-SHIRE 67 



green on which to rest the eye." But yet Coigach is far 

 from wanting an impressive beauty of its own. It is jewelled 

 with lakes, many of which are of considerable size. Lonely 

 and desolate they are in all verity, but their very loneliness 

 imparts to them a savage grandeur, which is greatly intensi- 

 fied by the lofty and remarkable hills which dominate them. 

 For the most part the sea-coast is deeply indented, and bold 

 headlands with beetling precipices extend as far as the eye 

 can reach. Here the scenery is magnificently grand, and 

 the effect is greatly heightened by the rugged and storm- 

 swept Summer Islands, whose appearance, as seen from the 

 mainland, would seem to convey to the onlooker the idea 

 that dreary and desolate as are his immediate surroundings, 

 a drearier and still more desolate region lies beyond. At 

 Auchnahaird Bay there is a veritable sand-dune which 

 extends for about half a mile, and which is the chosen home 

 of the Rabbit and the Wheatear, and where, among the 

 shingle, the wary Ringed Plover nests. In autumn, as Mr. 

 Bonar informs me, this bay is visited by many rare and 

 interesting migrants on their way from their home in the far 

 north to their winter quarters in the sunny south. But, 

 judging from the paucity of feeding grounds, and the fact 

 that Coigach lies outside the great migration route, I am of 

 opinion that the number of species which appear there at 

 that season must be very limited. 



Before proceeding to enumerate the different species of 

 birds which we observed during our stay in Coigach, it 

 may perhaps be well to offer some explanation of the 

 poverty of the list. In the first place, the district is, as I 

 have already pointed out, practically a treeless waste, which 

 offers no shelter whatever except to the hardiest of moor- 

 land birds. But even on the moors one is struck by the 

 scarcity of ground-nesting birds. This feature was observed 

 farther to the south by Messrs. Hinxman and Eagle Clarke, 

 who account for it by the excessive rainfall and by the 

 nature and lie of the rocks, which are unfavourable to an 

 effective surface drainage. To these causes I am inclined 

 to add (in Coigach) the superabundance of adders, which 

 are so common as to be an intolerable nuisance. Finally, 

 it has to be borne in mind that Coigach is mostly a crofter 



